Highland Heiress - By Margaret Moore Page 0,77

one arm around his former friend and grabbed Robbie’s forearm, trying to wrestle the gun from his grip.

A low groan came from the doorway as Moira rushed to her father. His face pale as paper, the earl held on to the door frame, while a splotch of red grew on the side of his neck, spreading across his white linen cravat.

“Papa!” Moira cried as she grabbed him around the waist, trying to hold him up. “Papa!”

Gordon wanted to help, but he didn’t dare let go of Robbie, not until he had the gun. Holding on to Robbie’s arm with all his might, he pushed him toward the wall, determined to smash his hand against it to make him let go.

Robbie dug his heels in, but his feet were on a waxed floor and the leather soles of his boots gave him no purchase. As if engaged in some sort of bizarre dance, Gordon moved him gradually backward until they reached the wall.

Gordon shoved Robbie’s hand against the painted plaster. Finally Robbie dropped the gun and for one brief instant, Gordon thought he meant to surrender.

He was wrong, for when Gordon relaxed his grip for that mere moment, Robbie charged forward, knocking Gordon off balance. As he tried to right himself, he felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his side from his wound. Robbie, half stumbling, ran for the open door past the earl lying on the ground and Moira kneeling beside him. The footmen tried to block him, but with a desperate strength, he shoved them out of the way.

“Let him go! Fetch the doctor!” Moira shouted at the footmen as they started to give chase.

His hand on his side, Gordon ran to the door. A swift glance confirmed there was nothing he could do here. The earl’s eyes were closed, and his shirt was bloody, but mercifully he was breathing.

“Gordon!” Moira cried as he continued past them.

“I’ve got to find Robbie,” he shouted over his shoulder. Whatever Robbie had done, whatever was going to happen, he didn’t want Robbie to end his own life, and he was afraid that would be Robbie’s next and final, desperate act.

Chapter Twenty-One

Two drivers and more liveried footmen waited by the earl’s and Robbie’s carriages, clearly wondering what on earth was happening.

Two drivers and two vehicles, so Robbie must have fled on foot, either too distraught to take his carriage, or fearful that the driver would refuse to move the vehicle, even if ordered. “Where’s Sir Robert?”

“He stumbled off like a madman that way,” one of the drivers eagerly replied, pointing toward the yew hedge. “Hardly upright and I think he was cryin’. We heard a shot inside. What’s going on, sir?”

Gordon ignored the question. “Fetch Dr. Campbell at once,” he said to the earl’s driver. “You go to the village with him,” he ordered the footman standing beside the driver. “Find the constable and tell him the earl’s been shot. Have him bring a search party here and send men to Sir Robert’s. Tell him they should see that Sir Robert doesn’t leave if he comes home and he should be arrested if he’s found anywhere else.”

He turned to the footman who’d followed him out of the house. “Get the other footmen and grooms and stable boys and start searching the grounds for Sir Robert. Take guns, but don’t shoot at him unless he draws a weapon. I doubt he has one, though.”

“Aye, sir,” the footman said, bobbing his head before he ran into the house.

The driver likewise nodded and climbed aboard the earl’s carriage. With a cry and a snap of his whip, the carriage leaped into motion.

Keeping a hand on his aching side, Gordon started to jog after his friend, who clearly wasn’t in any condition to run fast or far.

And who was going to be charged with attempted murder. Or perhaps manslaughter. He’d been drunk, after all—was still drunk as well as distraught, judging by the footprints and occasional handprints visible in the dewy grass leading to the hedge.

Gordon reached the hedge and plunged through it into the wood. It wasn’t difficult to follow Robbie here, either, for there were broken branches and crushed plants, and sometimes a muddy footprint. He went up short rises and down into ditches, over rocks and rough ground, his pursuit getting more and more difficult the farther he got from the manor house. Robbie didn’t seem to be headed toward his house, or the village. Perhaps he realized he would be more easily caught